MoviesD-VHS
is an exciting new twist on an old technology. Much like many new
technologies, Hollywood stuck its toes ever so slightly in the water
and then pulled out. As best I could see, there were about 100 to 150
films released in D-VHS format. That offering makes SACD and DVD-Audio
look like a rousing success. In their defense, Hollywood movie studios
are looking to sell millions of units of a movie and are scared to
death of allowing HD versions of their movies to leave the safety of
the lot. On the other hand, with few releases on the market, it is hard
to hope that D-VHS will ever become a hit with any audience other than
the hardcore home theater enthusiast.

HD Content on D-VHSAs
soon as I ordered my deck, I went to a number of websites to buy D-VHS
tapes. Amazon and some of the other biggies don’t have the ability to
understand the difference between D-VHS and regular VHS in many cases.
The site I liked best was www.DVDempire.com,
which has a separate section for D-VHS tapes. I bought about a dozen. A
few titles listed are either no longer listed or never made it to
market. “Moulin Rouge” is the most notable film that never hit the
streets. I watched the film in HD on HBO about a year back, and it was
likely the most impressive demonstration of HD and home theater I have
ever watched. In NTSC, I can sit glued to my screen for Nicole Kidman
but in HDTV, “Moulin Rouge” is an epic. As soon as the movie is
released, I will buy it.

My search for content on D-VHS took me to eBay.com,
where many out-of-date releases can be bought at above-retail prices.
The tape I was looking for was a JVC demo tape that I saw demoed at a
private residence in Beverly Hills on the new $30,000 Sony Qualia
projector. I found a copy, had to pay $85 for it and did so gladly. The
content, maybe an hour in total, is absolutely stunning. In native HD,
there are scenes from Japanese temples that are frighteningly vivid and
sharp. One scene, when a woman dressed in traditional Japanese garb is
sweeping the dock of the temple, looked insanely good on my D-ILA HDTV
projector. With the extra resolution, you could see the actual
differences in the decking of the dock, despite the shot’s somewhat low
light. Most HDTV projectors, especially early first-generation D-ILA
projectors like the one I currently own, aren’t all that good at
reproducing the kind of contrast you expect from a 34-inch HDTV Sony
CRT tube set or even a nine-inch CRT projector. However, inject some
rocket fuel like this JVC demo tape in D-VHS and prepare to be wowed.
Other scenes on the tape show close-up shots of koi fish in a pond, yet
motion artifacts are seemingly invisible. Daylight shots of modern
skyscrapers are also impressive. Even when panning relatively fast, the
architectural elements of the buildings stay solid and artifact-free,
meaning that they never look glitchy or jagged, the way you sometimes
see on traditional NTSC and even some HDTV feeds.

Movies on D-VHS are a blast and make you wish every movie you owned was
on this format. I recently watched the World War II thriller “U-571” on
D-VHS. The added resolution helped on the later scenes, which
historically have caused my projector to struggle. You can see, as
Harvey Keitel’s character takes the stolen German U-boat to a
dangerously low 200 meters, the beads of water forming on the gauges of
the boat even in a dimly-lit scene. “U-571” is a famous demo movie for
bass in a home theater and the D-VHS format is no slouch. Every bit as
impressive is the 5.1 surround track on the depth charge scene that
starts the film. The soundtrack encompasses you and your woofer will
rock your theater with energy at levels you may have never experienced
before. If you play just this one scene of the movie for your friends
as a demo of your new home theater, you will leave them speechless. It
is that impressive.

Another example of a dark film that shines on D-VHS is the cult
favorite “Glengarry Glen Ross.” As legend has it, the all-star cast of
the movie, including Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin, all did
the film for union scale pay. The film is a gloomy look into the
cutthroat world of real estate sales. Adapted from a David Mamet play,
the film is dark and heavy in dialogue, yet rich in content. Sneak in
the back door of any top electronics store for a sales meeting and you
might hear the manager quoting Baldwin’s character by saying “Put that
coffee down. Coffee is for closers only.” It is a dramatic film, to say
the least. On D-VHS, you get to see all of the subtle details that can
get lost in the 480i versions of the film. The sound of the rain (which
seems to fall for much of the film) is more symbolic to me when the
video is resolute enough to reproduce the raindrops on the windows with
such detail. Skin tones look more vivid, in direct comparison to the
DVD version of the film. For fans of the film, it is like being able to
get closer to the art, tying the entire emotional experience together
in a way that makes a DVD look like a child’s toy.